US-Israeli ties under pressure
Will growing pressure over the peace process hurt this special relationship?
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has delivered a speech on national security and the future of the peace process at Bar Ilan university near Tel Aviv.
It has been widely seen as an answer to Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo – also at a university – where he reached out to Muslims and the Arab world, hoping to improve America’s image.
Netanyahu broached most of the same issues as Obama but was resolute in his message – Israel will not concede to the demands of the US president or the Palestinians without certain conditions.
He also said that the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict was the Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state.
Inside Story, with presenter Kamahl Santamaria, discusses US-Israel ties in light of growing pressure on Israel from the US over the peace process.
He is joined from Paris by Patrick Seale, a leading British writer on the Middle East, from London by Abdul Bari al-Atwan, the editor-in-chief of Al-Quds al Arabi newspaper, and from Washington, DC by Aaron Miller, a former adviser to six US secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations.
This episode of Inside Story aired on Monday, June 15, 2009.